In 2002, investigative journalist and TED Fellow Will Potter decided to take a break from his regular beat, writing about shootings and murders for the Chicago Tribune. He went to help a local group campaigning against animal testing: "I thought it would be a safe way to do something positive," he says. Instead, he was arrested, and so began his ongoing journey into a world in which peaceful protest is branded as terrorism.

What started as a peaceful protest by the Mi’kmaq First Nation in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick against a shale gas project has now spun violently out of control. After the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) advanced on the anti-fracking protest, demonstrators clashed with police, chemical agents were deployed and at least half a dozen police vehicles were destroyed by Molotov cocktails. (...)

For writing messages in chalk on sidewalks around Bank of America offices in San Diego (e.g., “No thanks, big banks”), activist Jeff Olson was hit with vandalism charges carrying a potential 13-year sentence (San Diego Reader, 6/23/13). The city attorney’s office wanted to make it clear that it would not be arresting kids for playing hopscotch: “The People do not fear that this...will make criminals of every child using chalk. Chalk festivals may still be permitted. Kids acting without malice may still engage in their art.” “Without malice,” in this context, means “without political intent”; the city was more or less boasting here that Olson was being prosecuted for the content of his speech—a clear violation of his First Amendment rights, right?

It didn’t matter, because Judge Howard Shore granted a prosecutorial motion forbidding Olson from citing in his defense phrases like “First Amendment,” “free speech,” “free expression” or “political speech.” “The State’s Vandalism Statute does not mention First Amendment rights,” Shore ruled (San Diego Reader, 6/25/13). Just in case he hadn’t trampled the right to free expression enough, Shore later imposed a gag order on Olson, barring him from talking to the media about his case (San Diego Reader, 6/27/13).

Olson was eventually acquitted on all counts by a jury of his peers, leading Shore to condemn the media for “infuriat the public instead of informing it,” and the prosecutor to complain that Olson wasted taxpayer money by not accepting a plea bargain (San Diego Reader, 7/1/13).

This week the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations released a report about the crackdown on peaceful protests in democracies around the world – the tactics include excessive (sometimes deadly) police force and the criminalization of dissent.This is the introduction to the study, "Take Back the Streets," which details cases of suppression in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Israel, Egypt, Argentina, South Africa, Kenya, and Hungary. (...)